By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 20, 2013 Was she pushed or did she jump? What kind of a difference will the Brenda Heatherington resignation as Executive Director of the Performing Arts Centre make to the city and the Centre?
Make no mistake about this – her resignation is this city’s loss and a significant loss at that. As Executive Director there were challenges on the business side of the operation she headed up. She wasn’t and isn’t a business person; she is an artistic director with an impressive ability to relate to people one-on-one.
She knows the performing arts and she knows how to develop an audience; she did that exceptionally well in St. Albert, just outside Edmonton, Alberta where she served for 17 years. She understood that a market needs to be grown and that growth takes time.
She could light up any room she walked into; she knew how to grow the market for performing art – she just needed more time and more support.
Part of the problem, besides the business acumen, was that Heatherington didn’t know Burlington, she was not of this community and didn’t understand how deep its rural roots are. She wasn’t given the time to acclimatize herself to a city that is still shedding its provincialism
Our Burlington has been very critical of Heatherington’s board of directors. Our view was that they failed her time after time. They expected her to do more than she was capable of doing. Someone on that board should have spotted the problems on the business side and taken the steps to bring in the help she needed.
With Heatherington in place as the Executive Director and a strong business person beside her watching the numbers side and advising her, Brenda Heatherington would have gotten the Centre to the point where it was getting by on the half a million it was always going to need from the public purse. On occasion she would have gotten lucky and needed less.
There are people who were members of the board who went out and twisted arms to raise the $11 million that was the public capital campaign. They approached their friends and told them that all the Centre would need was half a million each year and the city was committed to providing that money.
When the budget for the Centre was put out showing a need for $1.2 million in 2014 and $1.4 million for 2015 many people felt they had been misled.
Someone needed to explain to Heatherington that it was not possible to tell the public that more than a million dollars would be needed every year.
In a town the size of Burlington relationships are very personal and friends don’t like to learn that they have let their friends down. The people who signed the cheques saw the place as theirs and also as a part of growing Burlington.
For reasons that are still not clear, the board seems not to have realized the disappointment many felt over the way things were working out. The two political representatives from city hall, the Mayor and Ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven, were either deaf and didn’t hear what was being said when the disappointing numbers were posted or they fully believed they could ride it out until things got better.
City council went along with the budget request – what else could they do? But they attached strings to the money: a full business plan review done not later than October of this year.
There are those in a position to know who will tell you that the marketing and sales people failed Heatherington.
There are those who wondered why the hours worked by the team were managed the way they were; the handling of the night managers rankled some people.
The Board wanted to see more entrepreneurship: Heatherington is an artist, someone who works with talent and develops audiences. She can read a balance sheet but delving into the day-to-day operating costs and budget management, wasn’t going to happen. A bank teller she never was.
People will ask if there is a lesson for us in all this and many will wonder what is going to happen next. Sales for the year are good so far and rentals are approaching the very good level.
The program for the fall is in place and will be launched sometime in May. Heatherington will be in town to do that launch which we understand is very strong. That’s what Heatherington does well.
As for the Board – well three new people are to be appointed. The board in place today did have an entrepreneurial bent to it and some of them put their money where their mouths were. One Board member bought 200 tickets to an event and invited his staff and business colleagues.
Others, Peter Ashmore in particular, put in untold hours labouring over the books, looking for ways to improve the financial picture. The numbers were not good – did anyone really expect that they would be? The performing arts is a business you grow over time. Audiences have to be introduced to new ideas and different kinds of entertainment.
Many expected a $40 million building to be used for local amateur theatre and be a place where local talent could be grown. This is Burlington folks, a small, at times very provincial place where the shopping choices are limited and the gasoline is higher than that on sale in Hamilton.
The Blue Jeans Gala, close to the most popular event held, was a smashing success. Was it superb performing art? Jimmy Tapp was on the stage, the Mayor was at the piano and the Member of Parliament tripped over the broom he was supposed to be dancing with as he forgot his lines. The crowd loved it – this was the Burlington they knew. And that was the Burlington Brenda Heatherington had to grow an audience out of.
It was do-able but everyone had to be much more candid with the facts, much more professional in the way they did their jobs and far more transparent.
Where will Brenda Heatherington go next? Back to Alberta to be with family? That was the media release line. This woman has skills that communities in Ontario would love to have available. She will do well.
When the fall program is announced in May we will realize what we are losing when Brenda Heatherington turns in her security pass. When we look back at how things went at the end of the year let us remember that the program we experienced was put together by Ms Heatherington.
The full story of the behind the scene boards of directors machinations will play itself at the cocktail and dinner parties held in the tonier parts of town.
In my opinion, the biggest mistake was letting the residents (taxpayers) of Burlington feel that the Burlington Performing Art Centre would be self-sufficient. This will never happen. I volunteered at BPAC when it first opened….it was quite evident that while everyone was touting that the building was built on time and on budget – this was not quite the truth. Volunteers are performing jobs that paid staff should be doing. The Volunteers are responsible to get people out of the Centre in the event of an emergency. Should volunteers have this responsibility? Many potential volunteers changed their minds about being involved because of this. It was quite evident that there was no money to properly staff the organization. No one on staff to be an event planner. I could go on and on. It will take more than Brenda Heatherington’s resignation to make BPAC successful. It will take someone with business acumen, along with an executive director who can find the entertainment niche that will work for the residents of Burlington who pay to go to the theatre, and then have to make up for the shortfall.